Chances are you'll be seeing a lot more clean-up crews along highways in the Bay Area and across California.
Caltrans launched an over $1 billion effort this week to begin removing garbage from the state's almost permanently polluted roadways.
The state's filthy freeways went from bad to worse during the pandemic.
“What we have today has surpassed what we had 15 years ago”, Caltrans Maintenance Manager Jose Velasquez said.
One of the reasons for large-scale messes is the proliferation of homeless encampments at many onramps and offramps.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the $1.1 billion dollar Clean California Initiative will attempt to permanently remove those hazardous housing situations.
“It’s time to get serious about cleaning up these encampments in the state of California as we equivalently commit to unprecedented resources to help people off the streets and that’s what’s different... this year than in any other year in California history,” Gov. Newsom explained during a visit to a freeway clean up site in San Francisco on Wednesday.
He added that the state also allocated $12 billion dollars to help local governments get the homeless into shelters, hotels and supportive housing.
The clean-up campaign is also expected to create 11,000 jobs.
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